Monday, September 5, 2011

Welcome, Karina Fabian

I'm writing this journal in the hopes that it will help me
keep my mouth shut while I'm at work.I
have the feeling I'll be needing all the help I can get.

I knew when I took this internship, that I'd be facing an
uphill battle.It doesn't matter how
many years you've been working in the psychiatric field--when you're only 19
and all that work has been done alongside your psychiatrist father, people tend
to dismiss it.Well, most, anyway.I think I have a couple of the staff
convinced that I know my stuff--or at least enough that they can trust me with
something more than bedpans and playing catch with the only teenage client,
Ydrel.

Ydrel.What a piece
of work he's going to be.He's got this
idea that he's psychic--and he's real good at living it.Maybe too good.How the heck did he know about Mass in
Pueblo?Maybe he'd keyed in that I was
Catholic--but he described Mrs. Montoya pretty well.Spooky well.Anyway, it doesn't matter, right?No one is helping him here, and if I can, I will, even if it means
trying to teach him control of "psychic powers."Guess I'll be browsing the paranormal
section, though I might start with Myth,
Inc. It's got ley lines and stuff,
and anyhow, Ydrel needs to develop a sense of humor in a bad way.

Then there's Sachiko.Oh, man!She's beautiful and
funny and she drives a Harley and I thought I was going to melt through the
blacktop when she smiled at me in the parking lot and offered me a ride.Do I want to ride with her!And I can not, NOT, think that way this
summer.She's staff--a swing shift
nurse, like five or ten years older than me, and Ydrel's pretty protective of
her, too.Apparently, she's taken care
of him a long time.Just the way to
wreck any trust I build with him, not to mention professional image.Besides, after Lattie, I promised to swear
off women for the summer.So why can't I
stop hearing her beautiful voice?

Okay.Enough for
tonight.Work in the morning--and I
don’t know what traffic is like that early.Rhode Island traffic is a far cry from Pueblo's.Bless me Lord, and help me keep my mouth shut
and my feelings to myself--especially around Sachiko.

Bio:

Unlike her characters, Karina Fabian lives a comfortably ordinary life. Wife to Air Force Colonel Robert Fabian and
mother of four, her adventures usually involve packing and moving, attending
conventions, or giving writing and marketing advice in one of her many
workshops. She's always had an
overactive imagination, however, and started writing in order to quell the
voices in her head--characters who insisted on living lives in her mind and
telling her their stories. Winner of the
2010 INDIE award, winner and finalist for the EPPIE and finalist for the Global
e-book awards, she's glad people enjoy reading the tales her characters tell.

“Obviously.
Did Edith tell you about the one time they did release me? The first thing I
did was smash all the bottles in my uncle’s liquor cabinet because the
butler—yes, Joshua, they have a butler—is an alcoholic and was obsessing on it,
had been obsessing on it for years. It was that or drink myself stupid, just
because he wanted to. That was nothing. My aunt took me

shopping. All
those people, all those thoughts…It was like ants crawling in my skull. I was
just managing to ignore them, and I felt this woman screaming—”

“’Felt?’”

“Yeah,
felt. Inside my head. I couldn’t help it. I snuck away from my aunt, followed
the thoughts—she was so scared!—I found her in a part of the mall that was
being renovated. This guy had her pinned. He was going to—” Ydrel broke off.

“What
did you do?” Joshua asked.

Ydrel
shivered. “Beat him unconscious. Then I tried to knock myself out, too. See, he
was so full of hate, and he wanted to— So I did, too. And the girl tried to
stop me and I yelled at her and scared her all over again and I tried to run
but the police showed up. So I ended up back here, where the environment, at
least, is controlled, even if it isn’t exactly normal. Even then, it’s not always
safe for me. Sometimes, Malachai puts someone in the room next to me…to study
my reaction, sometimes to punish me.” He looked up and his eyes were wide with
fear. “I’ve got to get out of here, Joshua. It’s not safe for me anymore.”

Joshua
was beginning to think it wasn’t safe for him either. The last thing he needed
on his internship was to get caught up in some problem between a patient he
wasn’t supposed to be taking on, and the head of the institution—a friend of
his father. Still…

Earlier,
when Ydrel had laughed at the idea of Joshua helping him, Joshua had moved his
arm in a very deliberate way. Now he used that same motion to recall those
feelings of hope and interest Ydrel had expressed. He waited as Ydrel calmed,
watching him take a shaky breath and release his hold on his hair, his fingers running
through the length, before he spoke again.

“We’ll
work on it, Ydrel.”

The
younger man nodded.

“OK.
You have some barriers. You’ve said that they work sometimes. I want you to
think about one thing that keeps you here that your current barriers don’t
protect you from.” He couldn’t see Ydrel’s eyes, for the patient had shut them,
but waited for other cues.

“When
my barriers work sometimes, or not at all?”

“Your
choice.”

“The
Miscria.”

“You
don’t have to tell—the what?” Curiosity got the better of him.

“The
Miscria. It calls me, and when it does, I can’t help it—I fall into this
trance. I can be doing anything, even walking, and just—boom. Then I have to
tell it everything it wants to know before it lets me go with some new
assignment, and for weeks I’m studying God-knows-what until it calls me again.”

“You’ve
lost me.”

“Information,
Joshua.” Ydrel opened his eyes and waved impatiently to the pile of books on
his desk.

Joshua
walked over and examined the covers. “The Miscria wants to know military
history?”

“Tactics.
Swordsmithing. Triage. Medieval fortress architecture. So I go cra—I have to
learn everything I can about the subject, and it just wants more. At least we
have a good librarian. He humors me, you know.”

Joshua
set down the book he was leafing through: Eye in the Sky, A Warfighter’s
Guide to Space Reconnaissance, by Felix Monroe.

“So
this ‘Miscria’ calls you, you pass out in your oatmeal, and you tell it
everything you know about whatever subject it’s told you to study? So...ever
refuse?”

Ydrel
blinked. “I— But it needs to know.”

“Why?
Ever ask it?”

Now
Ydrel sat forward, dumbfounded. “I… It never occurred to me to ask.”

“How
about going inside yourself and asking it now?”

Ydrel
shut his eyes, furrowed his brow. Joshua stayed standing by the desk, watching
the young man first tense completely, then seem to relax every muscle, much the
way someone under hypnosis would relax while remaining straight in their seat.

Several
minutes passed in silence before Ydrel shook his head. “I can’t. It has to call
me.”

“Then
that’s your first assignment. When it calls you, try this: First, see if you can establish some kind of
arrangement so that it doesn’t call you at inconvenient times—you decide
together what that means. Second, find out more about it, like why it needs this
information so badly.”

“What
if it refuses?”

“That’s
really up to you. Myself, I’d hold out. Blackmail can work wonders.”

Ydrel
met his eyes in a steady gaze, not challenging and not trying to see into him,
yet searching. “You don’t believe me about the Miscria, do you? You think it’s
some weird part of my unconscious. You don’t believe it’s an outside entity.”

Joshua
moved his hand as part of a shrug. It was a visual anchor he’d used many times
and it was a natural movement for him. “It doesn’t matter either way. The process
works the same. Just give it a try. You don’t have anything to lose.” A yawn
escaped his mouth, surprising him. He hadn’t realized he was so tired. “I’m
sorry, but I’m beat. Finish that drink off, if you want it, and go to bed. I’ll
see ya in the morning.”

He
started for the door when Ydrel called him back. “Are we going to be friends? I
mean, regardless of what Edith asked you to do?” he asked.

He
regarded him for a moment, a spoiled and snarky kid dealing with something he
didn’t think he could control. Josh could help him; he knew that. But be
friends?

Then
he thought about how this spoiled kid had jumped up to protect the nurse he
considered the one good person in his life. There was definitely more to him
than met the eye.

3 comments:

Thanks so much for touring my book today and for the opportunity to have a little fun imagining Joshua after his first day of work. I have written journals during big events of my life--never had the time or stamina to do it regularly.